Other Places to Visit

Check out D. W. Cummings, American English Spelling: An Informal Description (Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 1988). This book has wonderful sections on exceptions. Look up Holdouts in the index.

For example, on p. 156, he lists the words that retain the silent final E before another vowel: mileage, jadeite, clarkeite, and singeing. (He explains the E in singeing as retained to distinguish it from singing.)